Satsuki Shishio
Satsuki Shishio (獅子尾　五月, Shishio Satsuki) is Yukichi's friend and Suzume's high school teacher. He is also Suzume's first love. Appearance Shishio has black hair and green eyes. When outside of his profession as a teacher his appearance changes to accommodate the fact: his hair is messy, he wears big glasses, and his clothes are casual. When he is a teacher, he wears more dressy clothing, often sporting a dress shirt and pants, as well as a tie. His hair is also more professional, as it is combed to keep most of it out of his face. Personality Shishio is normally a bit playful and compassionate. He retains some of his nature while in his role as a teacher and discards anything that is considered unprofessional, claiming he knows the line between work and personal life, but that line begins to blur once he starts spending time with Suzume, even going as far as giving her the nickname "Chun-Chun." Plot Shishio initially meets Suzume at a bus station, where she was on her way to meet Yukichi, her uncle. Unfortunately he is her teacher. Suzume ends up falling in love with him after a while, and the two begin to have relations in secret, since a relationship between a student and a teacher is forbidden. Another one of Shishio's students, however—more specifically, the boy named Mamura who sits next to Suzume—disagrees with their relationship upon discovering it. This is because he himself has conflicted feelings for Suzume, which causes for a lot of tension. In chapter 14, Shishio's ex-girlfriend, Tsubomi, returns after 2-3 years traveling around the world due to her photography job. Though the two still appear to have feelings for each other, after an attempt at getting back together, Shishio feels that it wasn't the same as it used to be back in college when they dated. Later, Tsubomi is waiting at the gates of the school to give Shishio's lighter back to him. However, when she asks Suzume where she can find Shishio, Suzume tells her that he's already gone home. Tsubomi gives the lighter to Suzume and asks her to deliver it. Suzume agrees and goes back into the school and into the faculty office, where she asks where Shishio is. She is informed that he is in the nurse's office, sleeping. Suzume comes in to return his lighter. Seeing that he was asleep, Suzume poked the star-shaped birthmark on his neck. By doing this, he turns to his other side and starts sleep-talking about her, repeatedly saying "Chun-Chun" and "Chunsuke." She is flattered by this and confesses that she likes him, unaware that he was actually awake. A bit later, when Suzume is helping Shishio, a mosquito flies onto his arm and she slaps it without thought. He is surprised and says, "Slapping people suddenly, pressing moles without permission... You're always so sudden." However, unless he had been awake, he shouldn't have known that Suzume pressed his mole. Realizing he messed up, he looks away, leaving Suzume blushing and dumbfounded that he had heard her confession. Later, when Tsubomi is leaving, she asks Suzume if she could give a letter to Satsuki instead of her. She accepts and when Suzume gives him the letter a bit later, it reads "I hope Satsuki meets someone who will make him honest," which is likely referring to Suzume. Along with the letter, there were tickets to the aquarium. Shishio asks Suzume if she'd like to go, and Suzume asks if she can invite others. He agrees, so she invites Yuyuka and her other friends to come, but Yuyuka says she'll tell them. However, no one ever comes, and when Suzume calls Yuyuka, Yuyuka says something came up and the other two were busy. As Suzume reluctantly went into the aquarium with just Shishio, Suzume decides she wants to take a quiz currently being offered there to get the third prize of an ocean fish set. However, the instructor at the desk said she couldn't let them in unless they held hands, as it was a quiz for couples. Reconsidering going inside, Suzume offers to go somewhere else. Shishio, however, tells her to give him her hand, and despite Suzume saying no, he takes her hand and walks inside. At the end of the day, Shishio admits that he is "always having fun when Chun-Chun is with me." Later, in Chapter 47, Shishio asks Suzume what will she do if he stops teaching. Suzume replied “I’m going with you,” which makes Shishio turn the situation around and say that he was just kidding. Shishio then says they should just quit “it”—their relationship—and just go back to having a normal student-teacher relationship. He says that Suzume’s love for him was just “admiration,” and she does not really love him at all. He also told her that she loves someone else (referring to Mamura) who is not him. When Suzume asks him if he loves her, he says does not, which deeply hurts her. After that, Shishio goes to a secluded and quiet place in the school to smoke and reflect on what happened. He reminisces everything that happened between him and Suzume, from the first time he saw Suzume until the present. When a tearful Suzume had asked him moments ago if he truly loved her, he had said no, but this time Shishio held both of his hands and answered truthfully to himself. "I do. I do love you." In his thoughts he said to himself, "My love...has come to an end. I can't stop thinking... Was there no other way for me to end this without hurting her feeling?" Mamura soon confronts him after seeing Suzume crying, and he demands to know what he did to Suzume. Shishio explains that he told Suzume that they should go back to their original teacher-student relationship. He also tells Mamura that he lied to Suzume, saying he did not love her because Suzume was going to suffer even more if she were to stay by his side. Shishio explains that Suzume is too precious to him to be hurt, which is why he ended their relationship. Later, Shishio sees Suzume again when Suzume deletes a picture of Mamura on one of his freshman fangirl's phones. Shishio tries to talk with her, but after seeing the two of them coincidentally, Mamura comes and interrupts them. He tells Shishio, "You don't have anything to do with her anymore. We're dating.", and grabs Suzume away. This makes Shishio a bit distracted about his work, causing him to drink a lot of coffee. He goes outside for his break, only to see Tsurutani and Inukai together by a doorway. He tells them they should go outside and eat their lunches there, but Tsurutani and Inukai say that they're the only couple in their class, so they would gain too much attention if they go outside. Their reply makes Shishio confused, as Suzume and Mamura said they are dating, so he asks them about it. Tsurutani replies the real reason for Mamura and Suzume's dating, saying it was faked in order to get rid of Mamura's freshman fangirls. After Shishio hears that Suzume and Mamura are not dating, he grins oddly and thinks, "So that was an act, huh? Mamura, that bastard." However, soon afterwards, Shishio comes to learn from Suzume's friend Yuyuka that the relationship between Suzume and Mamura is no longer fake, and that they have started dating for real. The news made Shishio overreact in front of Yuyuka, asking if she was absolutely sure, which caused Yuyuka to question if Shishio still had feelings for Suzume despite saying he didn't. Later, in a classroom, Shishio embraces Suzume, which confuses her. Shishio is then embarrassed by his actions, but with Tsubomi's wake-up advice, he decides to let go of his pride. He meets Suzume once again in the school rooftop, and confesses to her. But, Suzume does not let him explain the whole truth behind his actions, as she is still denying the fact that Shishio loves her. During the school's sports festival, Shishio substitutes in an injured teacher's place in the relay race. He sees Suzume handing Mamura a handmade headband and witnesses Mamura hugging Suzume. In the relay race, Shishio races against Mamura. It is here that Shishio admits to Mamura that he finally confessed his feelings to Suzume, that he would never give in to anyone and anything anymore. Shishio is leading the race but at the finish line, he misses by just a few inches to Mamura, who won. He, in the aftermath, admits to Mamura that he is ready to accept defeat with honor. He later watches Suzume competing in the bread-eating race and notices Suzume trying to hold up appearances despite the twisted ankle she received. Though Suzume still won, Shishio knows her ankle is injured, and he takes Suzume to the infirmary to treat her injury. While alone inside the clinic, Shishio reveals to Suzume that he is now fed up being unable to let out his real thoughts and feelings. He wants to let her know that he still loves her by showing her that he changed through competing in a race. But he lost. He still wishes for his feelings to reach Suzume and for her to listen to him to the very end, but Suzume stops him from speaking further. Shishio understood and patted a blushing Suzume lightly on her head and left with a heavy heart. Despite that, Suzume's thoughts also left her like that, her painful foot feeling reminiscent of the pain in her heart. When Shishio finally leaves the infirmary, his expression is serious and pained as he stands outside the door. A while later, while Suzume and her friends, as well as Mamura, are in Okinawa, Shishio decides to go to Yukichi and tell him about his feelings for Suzume. While there, a bottle of alcohol had begun to fall towards Yukichi from a shelf. Shishio attempts to jump in front of Yukichi to protect him, but Yukichi had avoided the bottle and ended up elbowing Shishio in the face while doing so. Shishio's glasses broke and blood came out of a scratch he attained, but Yukichi freaks out and takes him to the hospital. Yukichi calls Suzume and lets her know that Shishio is in the hospital, but doesn't tell the whole story. Suzume, incredibly worried, decides to go see Shishio despite having to fly all the way back to Tokyo and having been in the middle of a date with Mamura. Before she had decided to leave, however, she had told Mamura what happened. She felt it was a mistake to tell him that she still cared for Shishio, and she tried to say she didn't actually need to go, but Mamura forces her to leave because she still cares for Shishio and needs to sort out her feelings with him. Upon reaching the hospital, Suzume is greeted by Shishio, Yukichi, and Tsubomi. Tsubomi forces Yukichi to leave with her, allowing Shishio and Suzume to be alone. There, Shishio finishes his confession that he was unable to in the infirmary, telling Suzume that he loves her. Shishio is then rejected by Suzume, who says that she has moved on past him and fallen in love with Mamura. He proceeds to inform her that he had already known about the turnout of what he was going to say, but was hanging on to a small sliver of hope that Suzume would've chosen him. Suzume and Shishio then exchange a few words of understanding, with Shishio going on to say that he hopes Suzume is happy in her relationship with Mamura. Shortly thereafter Suzume leaves to go back to Okinawa, Shishio is seen at the bar along with Tsubomi and Yukichi, sharing a few beers in reminiscence of the events led up to now. Trivia *His favorite foods are umaiboi and katsudon. *He likes to collect ball-point pens and watching Kiki Tobacco, a Japanese game show based around different types of tobacco (?). *He is nervous about the fact that he easily gets a hangover after drinking. *He reads a lot of shōjo manga. * He has a bad relationship with Mamura, both of them often calling each other a "bastard." *He owns a sushi-decorated necktie, a birthday present secretly given to him by Suzume. He wore it when he was teaching his class. *According to Suzume, he smells like cigarettes and coffee. *His first name, Satsuki, means "May." *According to the mangaka, Shishio—like Mamura—was modeled after someone, but she claims that it's too embarrassing to admit who. *In a popularity poll versus Mamura held by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_%28magazine%29 Margaret], the magazine that publishes Hirunaka no Ryuusei, he lost 1893 to 3849 with a ratio of slightly under 1:2. *The animal in Shishio's name, lion (獅子), is the "shishi" in "Shishio." Gallery Shishio in the first chapter.jpg|The first time Suzume met Shishio in chapter one Shishio2.jpg|Shishio in his teacher clothes at school in chapter two Shishio3.jpg|Shishio in casual clothing in chapter four Shishio as a teacher.png|Shishio dressed as a teacher Shishio blushing.png|Shishio while seeing Suzume in her tank top and shorts. Shishio coughs.png|Shishio coughs. Shishio smoking 2.png|Shishio smoking. Shishio greeting his students.png|Shishio greeting his students. Shishio handing a polo to Suzume.png|Shishio handing a polo to Suzume. Shishio sleepy.png|Shishio sleepy. Shishio smoking in the window.png|Shishio smoking at the window. Shishio blushing 2.png|Shishio ruffling his hair while blushing. Shishio4.png|Shishio's neutral face. Shishio.png Shishio talks.png Shishio says hi.png|Shishio greets Yukichi. Shishio hugs Suzume.png|Shishio embracing Suzume. Shishio smoking.png|Shishio smoking. Quotes References Navigation Category:Characters Category:Male